OLTD Learning Outcome:
- Critically assess and evaluate resources for best practice in online learning
- Scaffold digital citizenship from K-12 to professional level of educators
- Consider responsibility, accountability and civility in online environments
- Examine current research around best practices and emerging practices
Evidence to Support Outcome:
Reflection to Support Evidence:
The evidence piece I have chosen is a summary or “closing the circle” activity that allowed me to reflect on my experience co-facilitating a seminar week in OLTD 503. This activity also contains a detailed reflection on the how research-based practice for face-to-face classrooms is related to online communication and facilitation. The second half of the reflective paper contains a critical examination of the tools and communication strategies used throughout the seminar I co-facilitated.
The seminar week I co-facilitated allowed me to put many of the “pieces” together and experience presenting and teaching in an online environment for the first time. I was able to try different online learning tools for the first time with real participants, and I was able to gauge how my facilitation style compared to my fellow facilitators. I was also able to gain some valuable insights into teaching adults and teaching online from the co-facilitators I worked with. I have a better understanding of the how different teaching online “feels” and “looks” compared to teaching face-to-face, although a constructivist framework informed my experience in both regards. Although I wasn’t able to fully explore all of the different communication strategies I learned throughout 503, I was able to try those that best fit the circumstances. These experience will better inform my next opportunity to facilitate online.
The experience facilitating online learning and developing a strategy for online communication is critical to my development as an educator. Online communication between students and between teachers and students needs to be structured to carefully consider of accountability and civility to ensure a safe and productive learning environment. Social constructivism and connectivism both depend heavily on communication between students and requires the educator to understand how to facilitate and scaffold the conversations. An effective educator will understand how to structure the online communications, and stay informed about the best methods for doing so by keeping abreast of current research.